Das Internet Oracle (Auch bekannt als Usenet Oracle) gibt es schon eine ganze Weile und es ist nichts neues daran. Aber ab und zu sende ich schon mal eine bekloppte Frage an diesen Tollen Dienst. Das Prinziep ist eigentlich recht einfach:

Man sendet eine Frage und bekommt eine Frage eines anderen fragenden zugestellt. Diese sollte man dann beantworten. Nach wenigen Tagen bekommt man auch eine Antwort auf seine ursprüngliche Frage. Meine Frage an das Orakel lautete:

> What is the variation between a crocodile?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

There are 23 species of crocodilians, and the variation between them can be defined with a long list of features, such as snout broadness, eye placement, and tooth length.

However, I understand that you are not interested in the variation between crocodiles, but, rather, the variation between a single crocodile. In order to address that subject we will need to delve into multi-dimensional physics.

For an individual dimension, there exists infinite parallel dimensions occupying what is essentially the same three-dimensional space.

For semantics, let us refer to your dimension as Dimension 0.  (I say “your” dimension and not “our” dimension because I exist outside of the dimensional plane. But that’s a conversation your weak, uni-dimensional mind would not be able to grasp so just pretend I didn’t say anything about it.)

In Dimension 0 there is a crocodile. What is the variation between this crocodile? If we shift to Dimension 1 or Dimension -1, dimensions that are all but identical to your Dimension 0 aside from the placement of a few atoms in the gamma quadrant, the crocodile is molecularly identical and cannot be said to have any variation. If we shift to Dimension X or Dimension -X, we see differences in the chosen control crocodile, such as discoloration of the skin. If we shift to Dimension Y or Dimension -Y, the crocodile is radically changed, and exists as a bird or a wisp of semi-intellectual gases. If we shift to Dimension Z or Dimension -Z, the entire structure of the universe is different, perhaps the Big Bang has not yes occurred or all space/time is made up of chocolate pudding.

Your question can therefore be reworded thus:
Define X such that Dimension X is the first dimension in which a large enough variation occurs in the control crocodile that we can reasonably call it an actual variation.
Define Y such that in Dimension Y+1 (or -Y-1) the crocodile has so radically changed that one can no longer consider it a variation of the original control crocodile but, rather, an entirely different entity or object altogether.

Once defined, the variation between a crocodile is equal to (Y+1-X)*2.

The *2 accounts for the fact that we’ve defined the dimensional spectrum to be moving along a line in either direction away from the initial Dimension 0. This is, of course, entirely inaccurate, but necessary for a simplified discussion.

The problem is that our X and Y require making reasonable judgments, and different observers will have different values of reasonable.

You for example, will look at Dimension -Z and say, “That’s a lot of pudding.”  I, on the other hand, am fully capable of looking at a specific region of pudding in Dimension -Z  and saying, “Oh, look, there’s Snappy the Crocodile.”

You owe the Oracle your definitions of X and Y.

On second thought, you owe the Oracle some pudding. I suddenly have a craving.

(Danke an Merzmensch, der mich mal wieder darauf gebracht hat ne Frage an das Oracle zu stellen)